The IFR Top 250 Borrowers ranking includes all eligible Thomson Reuters league table borrowings in syndicated loans, international bonds, equity-linked bonds and securitisations from May 1 2015 to April 30 2016.

The rankings reﬂect the activity of borrowers at the parent level. In some cases, where the overwhelming majority of the borrowing was conducted by an entity that was not the parent, the name of the relevant subsidiary has been used. Borrowing by private equity companies has not been rolled up to the parent level, but where possible, has been attributed to the portfolio company.

For structured ﬁnance deals using separate special purpose vehicles, credit is attributed to the relevant parent group of the originator of the underlying assets.

An exception to the rule of rolling up to the parent level has been made for sovereign borrowers: agency, regional authority and state-owned corporate borrowing has generally been shown separately, regardless of the degree of government liability for the debt involved. Sovereign borrowings include only syndicated capital markets transactions, not borrowing through auctions of treasuries or other similar methods.

Transactions involving financial or corporate borrowers in which the debt is explicitly guaranteed by a government will be classified as agency debt. Issues that do not have an explicit government guarantee will not be credited as agency debt, irrespective of the stake owned by the state.

Loans bookrunner league tables do not include club transactions, but the corresponding borrower tables do.